Tender One
by Lizzosaurus
Summary: "You are so brave and quiet - I forgot you are suffering."


It was dark. It was warm.

Silent. Comfortable.

The floor rocked pleasantly beneath my body. While I was quite sure I was in Russia's kitchen, underneath the table, I could just as easily have been on a boat.

Russia's kitchen wasn't this warm. Not even when Lithuania was baking or boiling or flustering over something.

Boats were warm. There was sunlight and sea spray and warmth.

The darkness was only interrupted by a prick of light. A tiny tongue of flame that danced in front of my vision briefly before disappearing down the corridor.

Did boats have corridors?

And the silence. The silence was soft and filling and complete. A far cry from the harsh grating of screams and pleas that filled my ears day and night. The lamentations of my people were left unheard.

All was quiet.

I felt as if I were an infant, cradled within maternal arms that had never held me. I had never known the feeling, but I knew this simply must be what it felt like. I craved the feeling with every fibre in my aching body, to be held that way.

Toris did something decidedly similar, when he had enough strength, swaying to some unknown rhythm as he held me against his beating heart. Eduard did it too, on occasion, even though he was clumsy and stiff and awkward. The sound of his heart was drowned out by that of song, vibrating within his lungs and spilling from his lips.

But it wasn't the same.

And suddenly, everything was white-hot, and searing light was stabbing into my skull like an ice pick. I instinctively curled myself up against the pain and cried out loudly, uncaring of my surroundings. There was only pain. And light. I hated light. As suddenly as it had engulfed my body, the burning agony disappeared once more.

I could hear someone fumbling about in the darkness until his hands grasped my shirt.

"You stupid, stupid boy." Toris was hissing at me, shaking my collar until I released what sounded like a thin, animal-like moan.

He sighed, allowing me to fall back onto the floor. Muttering something about fifteen year-olds and whiskey, I felt his arms pulling me into a sitting position. My head lolled uselessly. For all I cared, my bones were crafted from sand, and my muscles from mud.

"Leave me alone." My words were too garbled and slurred to understand, even to my own ringing ears.

"Raivis, please."

I wanted to go back to the boat, but now Toris was hefting me up off the floor, grunting with exertion.

Was I really that heavy?

Or was Toris that thin?

As we ascended what I assumed to be the stairs, I could feel the jerking movements giving rise to a vexing, horrid nausea. Then there was warmth sliding down my shirt, and my throat was burning with foul vomit. Toris did not so much as wrinkle his nose.

He pushed the attic door open with his foot, placing me on my cot and wiping the spittle off my chin with his worn apron. I considered picking at him over the matter of his old woman's apron, but decided that forming the thought was well past the limits of my effort.

What a doting housewife.

Estonia was sprawled across his own cot halfway across the room. He did not acknowledge our presence when Toris lit an oil lamp and stripped me bare. I directed a frown at his back, sticking my tongue out at the wobbling stripes of his nightshirt.

"That won't do you much good." Toris scolded, rummaging through the drawers of our shared dresser for a suitable set of nightclothes. I had out-grown most of my pyjamas; the hem of my longest pair of bottoms reaching only to my shins. This was a great mystery to all of us, because I had not gained a centimetre since WWII.

I was cold. I wanted to be warm. Toris finally slid a flannel nightshirt over my skinny torso, and I nestled into it. My favourite pair. The ones with the green pinstripes and the pockets.

He tucked the thin blankets around my chin, sitting on the edge of my cot with a weary sigh. If he wished to say something - and I know he did - he never voiced his thoughts. His questions. Instead, he kissed my forehead and stood with effort.

So, after some time folding things and rekindling the stove and pacing about like a madman, he returned to the dresser and stood still and silent for several minutes.

Then he kicked at that poor piece of furniture with a frustrated yell. Eduard and I both jumped.

Hunching over, Toris pressed a hand against his mouth to restrain a festering wail that was welling audibly within his lungs.

I blinked.

And as I watched him, bent over the small, beaten dresser, I saw his shoulders begin to shudder silently.

" _Dieve, išgelbėk mus._ "

Perhaps, in his native tongue, the words meant something in regard to warmth.


End file.
